


Vacancy

by inaflorian



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst, M/M, Mini Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-28
Updated: 2017-06-28
Packaged: 2018-11-20 14:17:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11337207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inaflorian/pseuds/inaflorian
Summary: Levi feels alone.





	Vacancy

There is a man in the mirror. Not just him, but another one, right behind him, with his hand on Levi’s shoulder. The pressure is light, just the weight of the man’s arm and it feels almost like a pull. A pull towards something warm and safe, like falling back on the bed after a long day. But Levi can’t fall. He can’t give into the pull, he has to stay focused.

When he sinks his face in the basin of cold water from the well he can no longer feel the pull. He can no longer feel the hand, the warmth and safety. Instead the cold grounds him to this day, to the next one and the one after that. Because he has to keep going, he has to see this through. He has to remember this life, not that of the past.

The edge of the past is not in yesterday. It began years ago, on that roof, with that choice and the further he makes from that edge, the clearer the distance becomes. He remembers living for someone, not only for something, not only to eat another meal, to see another sunset or to slay another titan. He remembers when there was a purpose for him other than survival, other than washing and sleeping and eating. There was a place for him, somewhere warm, near something strong and big and sacred he didn’t know the name of and now… He looks in the mirror. He sees his reflection. And there is a hand on his shoulder again, and there is that warmth and that strength and it calls to him.

When he reaches for the hand he grasps at air and for a second he feels a tightening in his chest, the twist of pain that has grown into his flesh. It’s a reminder of the permanent vacancy there. Of touches that are now gone, of memories only his skin remembers. Sometimes it hurts enough to make him writhe, wrap his arms around himself to mimic some of them. But it’s never the same, because he cannot give himself the same warmth, he can’t feel that strength or that safety in his own desperation. And it has to be enough. Because there is another day to come.


End file.
